Rogue
10/4/2007, 08:45 PM
Saturday the Idaho State Bengals play the Northern Colorado Bears.
At halftime, my great uncle Italo J. "Babe" Caccia will be honored.
ISU is naming the field "Caccia Field." About damn time I say.
Uncle Italo turned 90 this week. I tried to fly him out to watch the Tennessee v. Notre Dame game last year, but his health wouldn't allow it. Born to Italian immigrants and raised by his uncle, he and my grandfather both served in WWII. Poppie was in the Army, Uncle Italo was in the Navy.
Uncle Italo is the only city councilman in his hometown that is not LDS to be elected in a town that is 90% LDS. A gregarious fellow who was always "into sports" according to our 87 year old cousin Mary who lives a few miles from me now here in Tennessee and still makes a mean chicken cacciatore (hunter's chicken.) A humble guy, Uncle Italo and his lifelong friend Milton "Dubby" Holt built what they believe to be the first permanent indoor college football stadium. We called it "the minidome" growing up and the folks here in East Tennessee liked it so well they flew up to Pocatello to get the blueprints. When I tell them my uncle and his buddy contracted the building to a crew of guys that built potato cellars and that is the reason for the unusual shape, they look at me like I'm crazy. I know better. The dome is now called "Holt Arena" after Dubby. I still do a double take when the locals here call their dome the "mindome."
Uncle Italo coached 2 undefeated football teams around the time a fellow named Wilkinson was doing the same thing in Norman; he was AD when ISU won the National Championship in 1981, and instrumental in the lives of coaches named Koetter, Kragthorpe, and one ESPN announcer, Merrill Hoge. He was a helluva baseball coach and a wrestling coach too. He coached in the CFL and helped the team win a Grey Cup. The guy is one of my heroes and not very well known outside of Pocatello, ID.
http://www2.isu.edu/headlines/?p=749
On Wednesday, Oct. 3, Pocatello residents are invited to help Idaho State University icon Babe Caccia celebrate his 90th birthday.
The public is invited to attend a celebration ISU will host to honor its former athletic star, coach and athletic director. Festivities will be from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Sports & Orthopaedic Center at ISU, adjacent to Holt Arena at 560 Memorial Drive. Birthday cake and hors d’oeuvres will be served.
The birthday party is just one of several ways ISU will honor Caccia during Homecoming week.
Ceremonies prior to ISU’s Oct. 6 Homecoming game with Northern Colorado will be held to name the Holt Arena football field Caccia Field.
“This is a great tribute to Babe, another ISU icon, for his extraordinary achievements that have brought the University national recognition,” says ISU President Arthur C. Vailas, Ph.D. “This is a great opportunity to honor Babe in Holt Arena, a place of Idaho’s true champions.”
“I am extremely pleased and humbled to have the Holt Arena football field named after me,” Caccia says. “I thank everyone involved in according me this great honor.”
Members of Caccia’s undefeated 1952 and 1957 Idaho State College football teams will accompany him on the field for the naming ceremony, and, with Caccia, will be guests of honor at a postgame get-together, from 5 to 7 p.m., sponsored by the ISU Athletic Department at the Red Lion Hotel Pocatello, 1555 Pocatello Creek Road.
ISU has started a fundraising initiative, “Thanks a Million, Babe,” in conjunction with the birthday party and naming ceremony. The initiative is a campaign to raise $1 million in honor of Caccia.
The committee responsible for bringing all the elements of the celebration together includes M.R. “Mick” Mickelson, Paul Bubb, Kent Tingey, Mike Byrne, Scott Hobdey, Andy Akers, Phil Meador and Don Colby.
Anyone wanting information on contributing to “Thanks a Million, Babe” should contact Colby at the ISU Foundation, (208) 282-3470.
Caccia is the winningest coach in ISU’s history in both football and baseball. His career football record, 80-38-2, 67.8 percent, from 1952 to 1965, includes unbeaten seasons in 1952 and 1957 and the 1963 Big Sky Conference championship in the first year of the league’s existence. He also won five Rocky Mountain Conference championships. He coached baseball for eight seasons, 1967-74, and posted a 152-116 record. His 28-5 1968 team is considered the best baseball team in school history.
He was ISU athletic director seven years and assistant athletic director 14 years. One of his hires as athletic director was a great one, head football coach Dave Kragthorpe, who led ISU to the 1981 national championship.
Caccia was an outstanding football player at ISU from 1936-38, and is a member of the ISU Sports Hall of Fame and the Ring of Honor.
He was big in civic involvement after his retirement from ISU. He served as a Pocatello City Councilman and is a founding member of Pocatello’s Sports Committee, which has brought many sporting events, including two NCAA Division I-AA national championship football games, to the Gate City.
Babe met his wife of 33 years, Tracy, while coaching in Edmonton, Alberta, in the Canadian Football League after he’d concluded his ISU coaching career. Tracy, children Heidi, John and Bill, and four grandchildren will all attend the week’s events.
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p99/cjrogue/babe-coachweb.jpg
http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story.asp?S=7154301&nav=menu554_4
http://isubengals.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/idsu-m-footbl-body.html
So, on Saturday I'll be watching the OU v. Texas game but a little distracted as my thoughts turn to Idaho and I wish Uncle Italo a great day, a great game, and for his Bengals to be victorious.
Here's to you, man!
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p99/cjrogue/IdSt_2500.gif
At halftime, my great uncle Italo J. "Babe" Caccia will be honored.
ISU is naming the field "Caccia Field." About damn time I say.
Uncle Italo turned 90 this week. I tried to fly him out to watch the Tennessee v. Notre Dame game last year, but his health wouldn't allow it. Born to Italian immigrants and raised by his uncle, he and my grandfather both served in WWII. Poppie was in the Army, Uncle Italo was in the Navy.
Uncle Italo is the only city councilman in his hometown that is not LDS to be elected in a town that is 90% LDS. A gregarious fellow who was always "into sports" according to our 87 year old cousin Mary who lives a few miles from me now here in Tennessee and still makes a mean chicken cacciatore (hunter's chicken.) A humble guy, Uncle Italo and his lifelong friend Milton "Dubby" Holt built what they believe to be the first permanent indoor college football stadium. We called it "the minidome" growing up and the folks here in East Tennessee liked it so well they flew up to Pocatello to get the blueprints. When I tell them my uncle and his buddy contracted the building to a crew of guys that built potato cellars and that is the reason for the unusual shape, they look at me like I'm crazy. I know better. The dome is now called "Holt Arena" after Dubby. I still do a double take when the locals here call their dome the "mindome."
Uncle Italo coached 2 undefeated football teams around the time a fellow named Wilkinson was doing the same thing in Norman; he was AD when ISU won the National Championship in 1981, and instrumental in the lives of coaches named Koetter, Kragthorpe, and one ESPN announcer, Merrill Hoge. He was a helluva baseball coach and a wrestling coach too. He coached in the CFL and helped the team win a Grey Cup. The guy is one of my heroes and not very well known outside of Pocatello, ID.
http://www2.isu.edu/headlines/?p=749
On Wednesday, Oct. 3, Pocatello residents are invited to help Idaho State University icon Babe Caccia celebrate his 90th birthday.
The public is invited to attend a celebration ISU will host to honor its former athletic star, coach and athletic director. Festivities will be from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Sports & Orthopaedic Center at ISU, adjacent to Holt Arena at 560 Memorial Drive. Birthday cake and hors d’oeuvres will be served.
The birthday party is just one of several ways ISU will honor Caccia during Homecoming week.
Ceremonies prior to ISU’s Oct. 6 Homecoming game with Northern Colorado will be held to name the Holt Arena football field Caccia Field.
“This is a great tribute to Babe, another ISU icon, for his extraordinary achievements that have brought the University national recognition,” says ISU President Arthur C. Vailas, Ph.D. “This is a great opportunity to honor Babe in Holt Arena, a place of Idaho’s true champions.”
“I am extremely pleased and humbled to have the Holt Arena football field named after me,” Caccia says. “I thank everyone involved in according me this great honor.”
Members of Caccia’s undefeated 1952 and 1957 Idaho State College football teams will accompany him on the field for the naming ceremony, and, with Caccia, will be guests of honor at a postgame get-together, from 5 to 7 p.m., sponsored by the ISU Athletic Department at the Red Lion Hotel Pocatello, 1555 Pocatello Creek Road.
ISU has started a fundraising initiative, “Thanks a Million, Babe,” in conjunction with the birthday party and naming ceremony. The initiative is a campaign to raise $1 million in honor of Caccia.
The committee responsible for bringing all the elements of the celebration together includes M.R. “Mick” Mickelson, Paul Bubb, Kent Tingey, Mike Byrne, Scott Hobdey, Andy Akers, Phil Meador and Don Colby.
Anyone wanting information on contributing to “Thanks a Million, Babe” should contact Colby at the ISU Foundation, (208) 282-3470.
Caccia is the winningest coach in ISU’s history in both football and baseball. His career football record, 80-38-2, 67.8 percent, from 1952 to 1965, includes unbeaten seasons in 1952 and 1957 and the 1963 Big Sky Conference championship in the first year of the league’s existence. He also won five Rocky Mountain Conference championships. He coached baseball for eight seasons, 1967-74, and posted a 152-116 record. His 28-5 1968 team is considered the best baseball team in school history.
He was ISU athletic director seven years and assistant athletic director 14 years. One of his hires as athletic director was a great one, head football coach Dave Kragthorpe, who led ISU to the 1981 national championship.
Caccia was an outstanding football player at ISU from 1936-38, and is a member of the ISU Sports Hall of Fame and the Ring of Honor.
He was big in civic involvement after his retirement from ISU. He served as a Pocatello City Councilman and is a founding member of Pocatello’s Sports Committee, which has brought many sporting events, including two NCAA Division I-AA national championship football games, to the Gate City.
Babe met his wife of 33 years, Tracy, while coaching in Edmonton, Alberta, in the Canadian Football League after he’d concluded his ISU coaching career. Tracy, children Heidi, John and Bill, and four grandchildren will all attend the week’s events.
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p99/cjrogue/babe-coachweb.jpg
http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story.asp?S=7154301&nav=menu554_4
http://isubengals.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/idsu-m-footbl-body.html
So, on Saturday I'll be watching the OU v. Texas game but a little distracted as my thoughts turn to Idaho and I wish Uncle Italo a great day, a great game, and for his Bengals to be victorious.
Here's to you, man!
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p99/cjrogue/IdSt_2500.gif